‘Celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day’

[Maarkhoor]

Updated: August 12, 2015 05:48 IST
‘Celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day’ - The Hindu

BJP State president G. Kishan Reddy and party leaders at a soyabean field in Dichpally mandal of Nizamabad district on Tuesday.–Photo: K.V. RAMANA.

BJP State president G. Kishan Reddy wanted the State Government to officially celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day on September 17, which the previous TDP and Congress regimes failed to do.

The Congress while being a puppet in the hands of the Majlis Ithehadul Muslimeen (MIM), and with an eye on minority votes, could not celebrate the historic day, he said. Now, the time has come to celebrate it with the formation of the new State, he said.

Addressing a ‘Maha Sampark Abhiyan’ (meeting of party cadres), here on Tuesday, he accused the Congress of continuously disrupting the parliamentary proceedings.

Appealing to the party cadres to take the schemes and programmes introduced by the Central Government to the door steps of every household, he said there is a great responsibility on them to strengthen the party at the grass root level. Every party activist needs to work hard in this regard, he said.

Mr. Reddy alleged that the TRS miserably failed to execute the promises it made to various sections of the society before the elections. Farmers are in dire need of assistance with the failure of monsoon, he said. On his way to Armoor earlier in the morning, he had a look at soyabean and paddy crops in Dichpally and Jakranpally mandals. Former MLA Yendala Lakshminarayana, party district leaders Palle Ganga Reddy, Gaddam Anand Reddy and Muralidhar Goud accompanied him.

Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre
When India was partitioned in 1947, about 500,000 people died in communal rioting, mainly along the borders with Pakistan. But a year later another massacre occurred in central India, which until now has remained clouded in secrecy.

In September and October 1948, soon after independence from the British Empire, tens of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered in central India.

Some were lined up and shot by Indian Army soldiers. Yet a government-commissioned report into what happened was never published and few in India know about the massacre. Critics have accused successive Indian governments of continuing a cover-up.

The massacres took place a year after the violence of partition in what was then Hyderabad state, in the heart of India. It was one of 500 princely states that had enjoyed autonomy under British colonial rule.

When independence came in 1947 nearly all of these states agreed to become part of India.
But Hyderabad's Muslim Nizam, or prince, insisted on remaining independent. This refusal to surrender sovereignty to the new democratic India outraged the country's leaders in New Delhi.

After an acrimonious stand-off between Delhi and Hyderabad, the government finally lost patience.
Historians say their desire to prevent an independent Muslim-led state taking root in the heart of predominantly Hindu India was another worry.

Members of the powerful Razakar militia, the armed wing of Hyderabad's most powerful Muslim political party, were terrorising many Hindu villagers.

This gave the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the pretext he needed. In September 1948 the Indian Army invaded Hyderabad.

In what was rather misleadingly known as a "police action", the Nizam's forces were defeated after just a few days without any significant loss of civilian lives. But word then reached Delhi that arson, looting and the mass murder and rape of Muslims had followed the invasion.

Determined to get to the bottom of what was happening, an alarmed Nehru commissioned a small mixed-faith team to go to Hyderabad to investigate.

It was led by a Hindu congressman, Pandit Sunderlal. But the resulting report that bore his name was never published.

Historian Sunil Purushotham from the University of Cambridge has now obtained a copy of the report as part of his research in this field.

The Sunderlal team visited dozens of villages throughout the state.

At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males... and massacred them
Sunderlal report
At each one they carefully chronicled the accounts of Muslims who had survived the appalling violence: "We had absolutely unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which men belonging to the Indian Army and also to the local police took part in looting and even other crimes.

"During our tour we gathered, at not a few places, that soldiers encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Hindu mob to loot Muslim shops and houses."

The team reported that while Muslim villagers were disarmed by the Indian Army, Hindus were often left with their weapons. The mob violence that ensued was often led by Hindu paramilitary groups.

In other cases, it said, Indian soldiers themselves took an active hand in the butchery: "At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males from villages and towns and massacred them in cold blood."

The investigation team also reported, however, that in many other instances the Indian Army had behaved well and protected Muslims.
he backlash was said to have been in response to many years of intimidation and violence against Hindus by the Razakars.

In confidential notes attached to the Sunderlal report, its authors detailed the gruesome nature of the Hindu revenge: "In many places we were shown wells still full of corpses that were rotting. In one such we counted 11 bodies, which included that of a woman with a small child sticking to her breast. "

And it went on: "We saw remnants of corpses lying in ditches. At several places the bodies had been burnt and we would see the charred bones and skulls still lying there."

The Sunderlal report estimated that between 27,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives.
No official explanation was given for Nehru's decision not to publish the contents of the Sunderlal report, though it is likely that, in the powder-keg years that followed independence, news of what happened might have sparked more Muslim reprisals against Hindus.

It is also unclear why, all these decades later, there is still no reference to what happened in the nation's schoolbooks. Even today few Indians have any idea what happened.

The Sunderlal report, although unknown to many, is now open for viewing at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.

There has been a call recently in the Indian press for it to be made more widely available, so the entire nation can learn what happened.

It could be argued this might risk igniting continuing tensions between Muslims and Hindus.

"Living as we are in this country with all our conflicts and problems, I wouldn't make a big fuss over it," says Burgula Narasingh Rao, a Hindu who lived through those times in Hyderabad and is now in his 80s.

"What happens, reaction and counter-reaction and various things will go on and on, but at the academic level, at the research level, at your broadcasting level, let these things come out. I have no problem with that."

Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre - BBC News

 

[Bornubus]

We are proud of it

Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre
When India was partitioned in 1947, about 500,000 people died in communal rioting, mainly along the borders with Pakistan. But a year later another massacre occurred in central India, which until now has remained clouded in secrecy.

In September and October 1948, soon after independence from the British Empire, tens of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered in central India.

Some were lined up and shot by Indian Army soldiers. Yet a government-commissioned report into what happened was never published and few in India know about the massacre. Critics have accused successive Indian governments of continuing a cover-up.

The massacres took place a year after the violence of partition in what was then Hyderabad state, in the heart of India. It was one of 500 princely states that had enjoyed autonomy under British colonial rule.

When independence came in 1947 nearly all of these states agreed to become part of India.
But Hyderabad's Muslim Nizam, or prince, insisted on remaining independent. This refusal to surrender sovereignty to the new democratic India outraged the country's leaders in New Delhi.

After an acrimonious stand-off between Delhi and Hyderabad, the government finally lost patience.
Historians say their desire to prevent an independent Muslim-led state taking root in the heart of predominantly Hindu India was another worry.

Members of the powerful Razakar militia, the armed wing of Hyderabad's most powerful Muslim political party, were terrorising many Hindu villagers.

This gave the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the pretext he needed. In September 1948 the Indian Army invaded Hyderabad.

In what was rather misleadingly known as a "police action", the Nizam's forces were defeated after just a few days without any significant loss of civilian lives. But word then reached Delhi that arson, looting and the mass murder and rape of Muslims had followed the invasion.

Determined to get to the bottom of what was happening, an alarmed Nehru commissioned a small mixed-faith team to go to Hyderabad to investigate.

It was led by a Hindu congressman, Pandit Sunderlal. But the resulting report that bore his name was never published.

Historian Sunil Purushotham from the University of Cambridge has now obtained a copy of the report as part of his research in this field.

The Sunderlal team visited dozens of villages throughout the state.

At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males... and massacred them
Sunderlal report
At each one they carefully chronicled the accounts of Muslims who had survived the appalling violence: "We had absolutely unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which men belonging to the Indian Army and also to the local police took part in looting and even other crimes.

"During our tour we gathered, at not a few places, that soldiers encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Hindu mob to loot Muslim shops and houses."

The team reported that while Muslim villagers were disarmed by the Indian Army, Hindus were often left with their weapons. The mob violence that ensued was often led by Hindu paramilitary groups.

In other cases, it said, Indian soldiers themselves took an active hand in the butchery: "At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males from villages and towns and massacred them in cold blood."

The investigation team also reported, however, that in many other instances the Indian Army had behaved well and protected Muslims.
he backlash was said to have been in response to many years of intimidation and violence against Hindus by the Razakars.

In confidential notes attached to the Sunderlal report, its authors detailed the gruesome nature of the Hindu revenge: "In many places we were shown wells still full of corpses that were rotting. In one such we counted 11 bodies, which included that of a woman with a small child sticking to her breast. "

And it went on: "We saw remnants of corpses lying in ditches. At several places the bodies had been burnt and we would see the charred bones and skulls still lying there."

The Sunderlal report estimated that between 27,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives.
No official explanation was given for Nehru's decision not to publish the contents of the Sunderlal report, though it is likely that, in the powder-keg years that followed independence, news of what happened might have sparked more Muslim reprisals against Hindus.

It is also unclear why, all these decades later, there is still no reference to what happened in the nation's schoolbooks. Even today few Indians have any idea what happened.

The Sunderlal report, although unknown to many, is now open for viewing at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.

There has been a call recently in the Indian press for it to be made more widely available, so the entire nation can learn what happened.

It could be argued this might risk igniting continuing tensions between Muslims and Hindus.

"Living as we are in this country with all our conflicts and problems, I wouldn't make a big fuss over it," says Burgula Narasingh Rao, a Hindu who lived through those times in Hyderabad and is now in his 80s.

"What happens, reaction and counter-reaction and various things will go on and on, but at the academic level, at the research level, at your broadcasting level, let these things come out. I have no problem with that."

Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre - BBC News

 

[Maarkhoor]

Operation Polo: The Forgotten Massacre in Hyderabad?
I came across this disturbing bit of history (hitherto unknown to me) while reading William Dalrymple's The Age of Kali. It relates to the Indian Army's'Operation Polo' in 1948 to end the resistance in Hyderabad and assimilate the kingdom into the Union of India. Allegedly, the Operation was accompanied by serious atrocities (including murders and rapes) of thousands. This is what Dalrymple has to say (pp 209-210):
I discovered later that it is in fact possible to make an informed estimate of the numbers killed in the aftermath of the 'police action'. For when reports of atrocities began to reach Delhi, Nehru 'in his private capacity', commissioned an unofficial report from a group of veteran Congressmen made up of two Hyderabadi Muslims who had prominently opposed the Nizam's rule and chaired by a Hindu, Pandit Sunderlal. The team made an extensive tour of the State and submitted their report to Nehru and Sardar Patel in January 1949. The report's findings were never made public, however, presumably because of its damning criticism of the conduct of the Indian army. It remained unpublished until a portion of it, smuggled out of India, recently appeared in America in an obscure volume of scholarly essays entitled Hyderabad: After the Fall.The report, entitled On the Post-Operation Polo Massacres, Rape and Destruction or Seizure of Property in Hyderabad State, makes grim reading. In village after village across the state, it meticulously and unemotionally catalogued incidents of murder and mass rape, sometimes committed by troops, in other cases committed by local Hindu hooligans after the troops had disarmed the Muslim population. A short extract, chosen at random, gives the general flavour:"Ganjoti Paygah, District Osmanabad:There are 500 homes belonging to Muslims here. Two hundred Muslims were murdered by the goondas. The army had seized weapons from the Muslims. As the Muslims became defenceless, the goondas began the massacre. Muslim women were raped by the troops. Statement of Pasha Bi, resident of Ganjoti: the trouble in Ganjoti began after the army's arrival. All the young Muslim women here were raped. Five daughters of Osman sahib were raped and six daughters of the Qazi were raped. Ismail Sahib Sawdagar's daughter was raped in Saiba Chamar's home for a week. Soldiers from Umarga came every week and after all-night rape, young Muslim women were sent back to their homes in the morning. Mahtab Tamboli's daughters were divided among Hindus, one is in Burga Julaha's home... "And so on, for page after page. In all, the report estimates that as many as 200,000 Hyderabadi Muslims were slaughtered in the aftermath of the 'Police Action': an astonishing figure which, if true, would turn the 'police action' into a bloodbath comparable to parts of the Punjab during Partition. Even if one regards the figure of 200,000 dead as an impossible exaggeration, it is still clear that the scale of the killing was horrific. Although publicly Nehru played down the disorder in Hyderabad, claiming to the Indian representative at the United Nations that following the Nizam's officials deserting their posts there had been some disorder in which Hindus had retaliated for their sufferings under the [Muslim] Razakars [militia], privately he was much more alarmed. This is indicated by a note Nehru sent to Sardar Patel's Ministry of States on the 26th of November 1948, saying that he had received reports of killings of Muslims so large in number 'as to stagger the imagination' and looting of Muslim property 'on a tremendous scale' - all of which would seem to confirm the general tone of Pandit Sunderlal's report.



I also discovered this blog post discussing the massacres. I wonder whether this episode is already better known than I think, and I have just been too late to find out about. In any case, I could not locate the Sunderlal Report 'On the Post-Operation Polo Massacres, Rape and Destruction or Seizure of Property in Hyderabad State'. If it is not yet public, surely the government is bound to disclose it if an RTI application is filed, even if it was commissioned by Nehru 'in his private capacity'? Is the note he sent to Patel publicly available? Surely we need to know - the large-scale involvement of the state troops actively involved in the killings, if true, would put this case in a very different category from cases where the state 'merely failed' to protect the victims.
Law and Other Things: Operation Polo: The Forgotten Massacre in Hyderabad?


Declassify report on the 1948 Hyderabad massacre
The Gujarat election will revive charges that Narendra Modi killed a thousand Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots, with the BJP accusing Rajiv Gan dhi of killing 3000 Sikhs in the 1984 Delhi riots. To get a sense of perspective, i did some research on communal riots in past decades. I was astounded to find that the greatest communal slaughter occurred under neither Modi nor Rajiv but Nehru. His takeover of Hyderabad in 1948 caused maybe 50,000-200,000 deaths. The Sunderlal report on this massacre has been kept an official secret for over 60 years. While other princes acceded to either India or Pakistan in 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad aimed to remain independent. This was complicated by a Marxist uprising. The Nizam’s Islamic militia, the Razakars, killed and raped many Hindus. This incensed Sardar Patel and Nehru, who ordered the Army into Hyderabad. The Army’s swift victory led to revenge killings and rapes by Hindus on an unprecedented scale.

Civil rights activist AG Noorani has cited Prof Cantwell Smith, a critic of Jinnah, in The Middle Eastern Journal, 1950. “The only careful report on what happened in this period was made a few months later by investigators – including a Congress Muslim and a sympathetic and admired Hindu (Professor Sunderlal)- commissioned by the Indian government. The report was submitted but has not been published; presumably it makes unpleasant reading. It is widely held that the figure mentioned therein for the number of Muslims massacred is 50,000. Other estimates by responsible observers run as high as 200,000.” A lower but still horrific estimate comes from UCLA Professor Perry Anderson. “When the Indian Army took over Hyderabad, massive Hindu pogroms against the Muslim population broke out, aided and abetted by its regulars. On learning something of them, the figurehead Muslim Congressman in Delhi, Maulana Azad, then minister of education, prevailed on Nehru to let a team investigate. It reported that at a conservative estimate between 27,000 and 40,000 Muslims had been slaughtered in the space of a few weeks after the Indian takeover. This was the largest single massacre in the history of the Indian Union, dwarfing the killings by the Pathan raiders en route to Srinagar which India has ever since used as the casus belli for its annexation of Kash mir.
“Nehru, on proclaiming Indian victory in Hyderabad, had announced that ‘not a single communal incident’ marred the triumph. What action did he take on receiving the report? He suppressed it, and at Patel’s urging cancelled the appointment of one of its authors as ambassador in the Middle East. No word about the pogroms, in which his own troops had taken eager part, could be allowed to leak out. Twenty years later, when news of the report finally surfaced, his daughter banned the publication of the document as injurious to national interests.”

Perry Andersen is accused by some of anti-Indian bias. This cannot be said of author William Dalrymple. In The Age of Kali, Dalrymple says the Sunderlal report has been leaked and published abroad, and “estimates that as many as 200,000 Hyderabadi Muslims were slaughtered.”

Our textbooks and TV programmes show Sardar Patel and Nehru as demi-gods who created a unified India. The truth is more sordid. You will not find any mention of the Hyderabad massacre in our standard history books (just as Pakistani textbooks have deleted reference to the East Pakistan massacre of 1971). The air-brushing of Patel and Nehru is complete. My friends ask, why rake up the 1948 horrors now? You sound like an apologist for Modi’s killings of 2002.

I can only say that the killings of 1948 cannot possibly justify the killings of 2002, or 1984, or any others. Modi has blood on his hands, whether or not he was directly culpable. But why pretend that others had spotlessly clean hands? There is a macabre logic in the praises Modi has recently heaped on Patel: the two were not entirely dissimilar. Nations need to acknowledge their past errors in order to avoid them in the future. Germany acknowledged the horrors of fascism and militarism, and this helped it build a new anti-war society focused on human rights.

Something is terribly wrong when Indian citizens are kept in dark about the biggest pogrom since Independence, even after foreign sources have lifted the lid. India’s jihadi press is fully aware of the 1948 massacre, and projects its censorship as evidence of Hindu oppression . This is not how a liberal democracy should function. India cannot become a truly unified nation on the basis of suppressed reports and sanitized textbooks. The Sunderlal report must be made public.
Declassify report on the 1948 Hyderabad massacre - TOI Blogs

 

[Hindustani78]

T-JAC for celebrating liberation day - The Hindu
Updated: September 17, 2015 05:44 IST
Terming the Telangana Liberation Day (September 17) as a significant event in the annals of history, the Telangana Joint Action Committee chairman M. Kodandaram has said the historic event should be celebrated to foster democratic values and honour the aspirations of people.

Mr. Kodandaram was in the town to participate in an awareness programme on competitive examinations organised by a coaching centre here on Wednesday. Talking to newsmen, Mr. Kodandaram said the Telangana Liberation Day signifies triumph of a valiant fight against tyranny.

The government can organise some specific programmes to mark the celebration of the historic event, he suggested in reply to a specific query on some political parties’ demand for celebration of the Telangana Liberation Day officially.

 

[Hindustani78]

PM Modi hails those who helped in merger of Hyderabad with Union | Zee News

Last Updated: Thursday, September 17, 2015 - 23:45

New Delhi: On the 67th anniversary of Hyderabad State's merger with the Union of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid tributes to those who sacrificed their lives for it and particularly highlighted the "exemplary" role played by Sardar Patel.

"I salute all those who sacrificed their lives for India's unity during the period of the merger of Hyderabad State into India," he tweeted.

"No mention of Hyderabad State's merger into India is complete without remembering exemplary role played by Sardar Patel during those times," he added.

It was on this day in 1948 that Hyderabad State merged with the Union of India.

 

[Hussain Farooqui]

We are not interested in these falsified celebrations. We are keen to know what better standard of living Bharat could give to the citizens of Hyderabad State? First do something which must be better than Nizam's period and then let people celebrate realistically.

 

[Karan Gulati]

We are not interested in these falsified celebrations. We are keen to know what better standard of living Bharat could give to the citizens of Hyderabad State? First do something which must be better than Nizam's period and then let people celebrate realistically.

Hyderabad is undeniably one of the top cities of South Asia. Its citizen enjoy better standard of living than many S Asian cities. recently it got Metro, a luxury only very few S Asian cities have. It is home to one of the top B schools of the world. Technical institutes are some of the best in Asia. uninterrupted power supply and access to cheap healthcare. It has a bustling IT industry. very modern newly built roadways and not to forget home to Telugu film Industry which recently released Asia's most expensive movie 'Bahubali'.

If I am not wrong, Pakistan too has a city called 'Hyderabad'. I hope the people there enjoy same facilities as people of Indian Hyderabad

Edit: I meant to write S Asia's most expensive movie Bahubali